Real Poker is nothing like what you see on TV.

Get that out of your head now. When you see episodes of the World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour, you're not seeing the complete game. You're seeing bits and pieces of the most exciting hands or just the final table. The early stages of a tournament are boring. Most people play fairly tight.

Real poker isn't all about the bluff. You might see some semi-bluffs for drawing hands, or a continuation bet if you don't hit the flop in the right circumstances and blind steals but generally speaking, bluffs are a small portion of the game.

Get it out of your head that you're the next Gus Hansen or Daniel Negranu and play good solid poker until you get more experience and a better understanding of the game and the players. In later stages of a tournament you'll want to open up your game a bit, and if you're short stacked you'll have to know when to shove all your chips in pre flop but in general you're playing ABC poker.

There are some maniac players that will play many hands and try and bluff people out or hit miracle flops and win against a better starting hand. From my experience though, these players don't make it far. They may have big chip stacks early on but they can become easy targets for tight players that can use their aggression against them to double up. There have been so many times when I flop a monster and check it to an aggressive player, who I know will push all-in with bottom or middle pair, to double me up. Remember the saying, "You can't win a tournament in the early stages, but you can easily lose it."

Sometimes these maniacs get very lucky and go far or win, but in general they're losing players. I was recently in a 9 person Sit N Go with a very loose aggressive player. All the other players got sick of him and tried to take him out. But he always managed to suck out with the worst hand. It was incredible. He was seeing the flop about 70% of the time which is insane. The probability of getting good hands that often is not likely. I didn't catch many good hands that game and I wanted to stay out of the maniacs way. In 21 minutes, about a third of the time of a normal game, the maniac and I were the last two people standing. I only saw the flop about 3 times until that point. I managed to win a couple of pots to keep me ahead of the blinds but in 21 minutes, the blinds didn't hurt much. I was completely outchipped heads up and got unlucky when he actually woke up with a real hand but it was the quickest 2nd place finish I've ever had and the easiest as well.

After the game I looked up this guy's stats on www.sharkscope.com and his profit graph was almost a straight line pointing down. This must have been his first win in a long time.

The importance of Bank Roll Management.

This is by far the most important concept to understand. It's something I wish I heard of earlier.

I started off in a different site than I'm playing at now. I made a small $20 deposit to get started. Within no time I had nearly doubled my initial deposit. My low limit texas hold'em results were good and I was having a good run in the small buy-in Sit n Go tournaments. I even made the final table in my first multi table tournament, finishing 8th out of a field of over 2000 entrants.

Things were going good and my confidence rose. Then I hit a loosing streak. Probably a combination of being overconfident, a run of bad luck and some bad beats. These things happen. I didn't drop down too low but I wanted to get back up to where I was so my plan was to play some of the higher buy-in SnG's to rebuild the bankroll faster. Things didn't work out as planned and then another couple of deposits and attempts to play at levels above my bank roll.

So the hard work I put in initially to work a profit was quickly corrupted by my stupidity. This is the classic bank roll mistake.

In the beginning you want to play conservative to build your bankroll. Your primary goal should be cashing rather than going for the big wins until you have a bankroll that can support your play. Some general rules are to keep Sit n Go buy in's to about 3-5% of your current BR and 1-2% buy in for Multi Table Tournaments (MTT's) . If you're a good player, you should expect to cash in about 30% of the single table SnG's and if you're a very good player about 15% of MTT's.

Here are a few links to Bank Roll Management articles:

http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/bankroll-management
http://www.pocketfives.com/5C57520F-8A89-43F3-97E6-54D240CB3E59.aspx

So what's this all about?

For a few years now I've been watching poker tournaments on TV. I've learned a bit just from watching, especially from Mike Sexton's commentary on the World Poker Tour.

Recently, the itch has been getting harder to ignore and about a month ago I decided to jump into the world of online poker to see where it takes me. The main motivation was my success in a Dish Network interactive WPT poker game where I managed to finish in the top 20 and win a $50 gift certificate. While this wasn't against real players it did give me a better understanding of the game.

Like most people, I've played different games with friends and family but nothing on a regular basis. I have some understanding of the game but there is a lot I need to learn.

As I learn I'll be posting information I find useful.

This blog is starting after a lot has happened in my poker life so I'll be posting a few entries early on to bring it up to speed.